Brazil Indian games spotlight struggles

Tribes complain of abandonment and poor treatment after the event was delayed by rains

ANGUS MACSWAN, Reuters News Service

Published 6:30 am, Sunday, November 28, 2004

JAQUEIRA INDIAN RESERVE, BRAZIL - The seventh indigenous people's games were supposed to be a celebration of Brazil's Indian tribes, but they turned out to be another sad episode in their history of bad luck, neglect and exploitation.

Torrential rains forced the suspension of the games before they got fully under way last week, washing out the camp in this Indian reserve on the coast of Bahia state and forcing hundreds of men, women and children to take shelter like refugees in a convention center outside the city of Porto Seguro.

They complained that officials had abandoned them and they argued about whether to stay or go as rains and winds lashed the area.

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About 1,200 Indians from 31 tribes had descended on the reserve, a few miles from the beach where Portuguese explorers led by Pedro Alvares Cabral first encountered Indians in the year 1500. Some had traveled for four days from reserves in the interior on buses, some carrying dugout canoes on the buses' roofs.

The theme of the games was "not competing but celebrating." At a stirring opening ceremony on Nov. 21, Indians from 31 nations paraded around the arena at the reserve in feathered headdresses and colorful skirts, their bodies adorned in paint.

They shook bows and arrows and spears and performed shuffling dances accompanied by war whoops and chanting.

"We are contributing to the rescue of this culture that is part of the Brazilian people," said Sports Minister Agnelo Queiroz.

All looked forward to a week of games including archery, footraces, log-carrying relays, canoe and swimming contests and — this being Brazil — soccer.

The next day the rains opened up. The winds blew down tents and tore holes in the thatched cabins that housed the Indians. Rivers of rain ran through the camp.

Eventually on the same afternoon they boarded buses and were evacuated to a cavernous convention center named with cruel irony the Center for Discovery Events. There they stretched out with their few possessions on a concrete floor like refugees from a dangerous conflict.

There was no one to sell their handicrafts to. Senior officials from Funai, the government's Indian agency, were hard to find.

"We have been here for three days doing nothing. Everyone is getting cold," complained a leader of the Paraci tribe team.

He said the Indians had been upset from the start. Cabins at the camp had not been arranged in the traditional circle but in rows, he said. And they were like a slum. Sanitary conditions had been awful, he said.

"What's this worth for the people. They are supposed to be celebrating. They are sad," he said.

When the games organizer, Marcos Terena, showed up that night, he faced angry leaders, many of whom wanted to pack up and go home. He threatened that any tribe who left would be banned from future games.

Government agencies eventually provided food and mattresses for the Indians. The next morning the rain was still bucketing down.

The games are part of a wider political struggle for the Indians and the episode seemed to symbolize their misfortunes in the five centuries since Cabral landed.

Indians still face constant encroachment on their land by loggers, miners and ranchers, frequently leading to violent clashes.

"The Indian is hidden in general," said Edson Terena, and leader of a delegation of Terena Indians from a reserve in Mato Grosso state. "The government hides us, the politicians hide us. We are abandoned in our villages."